My Favorite Chess Books

In the time leading up to the World Chess Championship match in 1972, critics said that Boris Spassky didn’t play with enough “fire” and determination in his matches and by the time he faced Bobby Fischer, the challenger from the United States, he hadn’t been tried enough. During the match, Spassky had an army of Russian chess players to help him analyze his game where Fischer worked mostly alone, late into the night, with chess books. I have several books by and about Bobby Fischer simply because I followed the match everyday in the media when he played for the 1972 World Chess Championship Match against the Russian Boris Spassky. And though they make interesting reading, I have found the following books to be most helpful for improving my game: “How To Reassess Your Chess” - Silman, “My System” - Nimzovitch, “Basic Chess Endings” - Fine, “The Art of Positional Play” - Reshevsky, “Chess Thinking” - Pandolfini, “Attacking Chess” - Waitzkin, and my first chess book “Chess Openings Theory and Practice” - Horowitz, a big book which is completely falling apart from years of use. I still use it today to find “new” lines of play from a vast array of analyzed games. And It’s endorsed on the back by my former teacher, Sammy Reshevsky. I have many more chess books which include “Chess Brain Twisters” - Hoehberg, and all sorts of puzzle type books and games by the masters like “Candidates Matches 1974” to a book called “From Steinitz to Fischer” - by Max Euwe. (I like to re-play the games by the masters.) One book in particular that I read almost everyday is “The Complete Chess Workout” - Paillser. And I can't leave out "Practical Chess Exercises" - Cheng. It's not just tactical like of lot of the similar "best one move" chess books, but it covers tactics and strategy all arranged so there is no graded progression so it's more like what you would experience in real play. But regardless of your preference in chess books, it’s always helps to search for attacks and defenses in opening lines and sharpen your middle and endgame.

Chess Openings: Theory and Practice isn't breaking up "from years of use." It is breaking up because of the shoddy binding by the publisher Simon & Schuster. There is not a single copy of this book on the planet that isn't breaking apart.

Chess Openings: Theory and Practice isn't breaking up "from years of use." It is breaking up because of the shoddy binding by the publisher Simon & Schuster. There is not a single copy of this book on the planet that isn't breaking apart.

Lol! Well, I began using it around 40 years ago give or take a year or so.

I have my original copy of COT&P which is still intact. I also have MCO 10 and MCO 15. It is interesting to compare the lines among the three references and see how they differ and which GM games are chosen as representative. I agree with the OP that there are many interesting complete games in COT&P, and each of the three books contain ideas not found in the others.

The current thinking seems to be to use online resources for opening study since they are "up to date." On the other hand, many old ideas that have fallen out of favor are not necessarily weak and are often resurrected by GMs to surprise opponents and stay away from lines in current favor.

As far as generic opening books, the general consensus seems to be FCO: Fundamental Chess Openings by Van der Sterren